This blog examines past, current, and best practices, techniques, and lessons learned of various business intelligence implementations.

Social Networking

May 10, 2008

The use of social networking sites is rising sharply, as more and more Internet users participate in Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other similar online communities.Facebook alone logged in over 8.9 million users last December, according to Nielsen Online.

What has made these communities so popular is the way they facilitate unhindered communication.With social networking sites, people around the world can connect and share information in ways they never could before.And, as corporations jump on the bandwagon, the medium is rapidly transforming itself from a bunch of casual networking and “meet and greet” sites, to a series of extremely valuable business collaboration tools.

Over the next several years, many experts believe that social networking will have a major impact on business intelligence systems.But, just how will these two vehicles converge?

Traditional BI tools have made vital business data readily available to a large base of users both inside and outside the enterprise.Companies can easily access information from a variety of applications and systems, and share information with internal employees, as well as external customers and business partners.However, social networking extends the reach of BI environments even further, allowing businesses to publish reports and analysis to public communities of virtually unlimited size.

What is the advantage?Truly collaborative intelligence that empowers an organization to harness the collective thinking of a large user base for the purposes of assessment and decision-making.

For example, a company is developing long-term product enhancement plans.In order to determine which new features its potential customers may want, it compiles and analyzes historical data from its CRM system.The CRM data, while quite valuable, offers insight from only one perspective – the company’s.

With social networking, the company can share that report, and its interpretation of it, with an online community that includes members of its target audience.Community members can then comment and add their own unique opinions, providing even greater insight into what prospects truly require, and what will drive them to buy.

Many vendors are also working on capabilities that will enable their BI tools to draw unstructured data directly from social networking sites, and incorporate it into business reports.This will help facilitate improvements in market research, contact and relationship management, recruitment and staffing, and other critical business functions by providing companies with a broader stream of real-time information for analysis purposes.

Another way that social networking is enhancing business intelligence is through communities dedicated solely to the development of BI applications.Programmers and other IT professionals – who would be unlikely to ever meet in other scenarios - gather at these sites to discuss a variety of related topics, share ideas, and possibly even “trade” pieces of code.

The possibilities are virtually endless.As social networking continues to become a major communication channel for today’s businesses, BI users and vendors alike are likely to continue to find new and innovative ways to leverage these two technologies together.